“We need an intellect filled with wisdom, a still mind, a clear conscience, free of outside influences, a heart filled with good clean feelings, an attitude of benevolence and to clean the memory track.” “The intellect is the vessel of spiritual understanding. Everything in human life depends on what is going on within the intellect. When we need to take a decision, we need to let the mind become quiet, keep spiritual wisdom in the intellect and stay connected with the Divine to receive power and clarity. When the intellect is without spiritual wisdom the conscience becomes dysfunctional.” Sister Jayanti
The conscience has been described as the inner voice guiding us to our own truth. However it is hard to hear that still small voice that is intrinsic to myself. It is mixed with the voices of our parents, teachers, religious leaders and society. I need to spend time listening and differentiating between the voice of my conscience and the many other voices telling me what is right and good, good and bad.
Once I can again hear my conscience I can be guided by what the conscience is telling me to do. Otherwise, we can adopt a new set of rules and not really know what best aligns with our inner truth.
“The conscience will dictate your life, whether you want it to or not.” Mike George.
The conscience will dictate your sleep, health and relationships. Better listen to it. The conscience is like the ‘heart’ of the intellect. It has a clear connection with the mind. When we follow our conscience we are at rest within. The mind is peaceful and clear. The more we suppress and try to kill our conscience, the foggier my mind becomes as I choose not to see my truth. If we are not following our swadharma, our own righteous way of being, we are not at ease with ourselves. Most stress is due to going against our conscience and not the external environment.
“Spirituality means to clear away the rubbish and release the power that is in the soul. You can have faith only when you can understand what you have heard. You don’t have to trust me to have trust. You trust in something after making yourself understand. If your intellect agrees with it, then you trust. We lost the power of decision-making because the intellect became so weak. We used to suppress our conscience because we were under the influence of other people, opinions and the world. Now our conscience opens up, and we develop the power to perform good actions.” Dadi Janki
Spirituality is the courage to change myself. Because of the unhealthy pre-occupation with fear and guilt, we have tried to push these two emotions out of our lives. There are healthy aspects to these inner voices just as there are healthy and unhealthy desires. Fear and guilt need to be used constructively and appropriately rather than pushed aside. If we listen to our conscience, and develop a relationship with the self, through the conscience, these voices of fear and guilt would be helpful to our development. If we cannot see our wrongdoing we may develop hubris. We are not talking about psychological fear and guilt but using these two emotions as clear indicators of awareness and alignment with truth. Deep down, when we are centred, we know what is right or wrong.
Superstition is fear-based beliefs unrelated to truth. Fear and Love are the two spectrums between Superstition and Spirituality. Superstition may be found in religion when there is a basis of fear and when we blindly follow. Spirituality is about living in the awareness of the non-physical self, experiencing inter-connectedness to all things. Religion supports this endeavour. However when we are not in this state of love our motives become fear based and our actions based on superstition. Spirituality is based on experience, Religion on tradition and Superstition on fear.
We close with a quote from Pope Francis,
“Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.”